Love at WorkSample

Begin in Prayer

Devotional - Beginning With the Right Story

I want to begin by pointing out two things that we often miss in today’s familiar passages.

First, we meet God in scripture as a worker. The story of our faith begins with God doing the work of creation. He is speaking things into existence, separating, filling, blessing, and celebrating the goodness of what He made.

Second, our story begins by showing us a loving God who mysteriously exists in an eternal loving community of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Look again at the plural language in verse 26, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may…” Unlike the stories of their neighbors, whose gods created out of anger, dominance, or to have pawns to move around on their chessboards, the Hebrew God created to share the love that existed within the trinity.

This loving worker, God, longs to share life and work with humanity. We often miss the fact that God commissioned Adam to work before the fall. God created His image bearers, stand-ins who would carry on the creative work He started. It was like He was saying, “Join me. Care about what I care about. Steward it. Move creation forward. Bring order to the raw materials that I’ve put right in front of you.”

Sometimes we think work is the last place that can be connected to love, but in scripture, it is the first place.

Pause for a moment to consider:

• What is the work that God has called me to in this season?
• What is the ‘raw material’ that God has entrusted to me?
• How can doing this work with love give a glimpse of the Kingdom of God?

John wrote, “God is love.” (1 John 4:8) His very essence is love, and He created everything in love, from love, with love, and for love. If we are to love God and others in our work, at our work, and through our work, the story must be anchored in love.

Close in Prayer

Loving Heavenly Father, you are the source of all love. Thank you for your endless love for me and everyone I come in contact with today. Thank you for your invitation to co-labor with you and love the world through my work. Open my eyes to that story so that I may share it with my words, actions, and attitude. Amen.